Caribbean Briefs 04-18-13

HAITIElection council PORT-AU-PRINCE — The Michel Martelly administration said a nine-member council, with representatives from the executive, judicial and legislative branches, will be in charge of laying out an electoral calendar and then registering political parties and voters.

Legislative and local elections were supposed to be held in late 2011 but the authorities failed to agree on the composition of an electoral panel to oversee the vote. The holdup has frustrated major aid donors, who have stepped up pressure for a vote before year’s end. The election is meant to fill 10 seats in the 30-member Senate which has been operating at two-thirds of its capacity since the terms expired almost a year ago, and hundreds of local posts.

Ministers resign PORT-AU-PRINCE — Communications Minister Regine Godefroy has resigned, according to radio reports. The news came one day after Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie resigned as finance minister. Their departures came amid growing allegations of types of government corruption.

Dyncorp contract PORT-AU-PRINCE — The Falls Church, Va.-based DynCorp International, a leading U.S. military contractor, announced it won a contract for up to $48.6 million to help support a U.S. contingent to the United Nations peacekeeping mission here. The company will recruit and finance up to 100 officers to join the United Nation’s police unit affiliated with the mission, known as UN Pol, and 10 United Nations corrections advisers. The contract also means that DynCorp will provide logistical support to the police academy, along with five French- and Haitian Creole-speaking experts to advise senior police officials.

PUERTO RICOMarriage dispute SAN JUAN — Hundreds of people marched through the capital Saturday to demand that the governor approve a constitutional amendment stating that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid. A similar march in February drew an estimated 200,000 people. The protest came as legislators hold hearings on legislation that would outlaw discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation and extend a domestic violence law to gay couples.